


Ritardando

by destielpasta



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel Plays the Piano, Dean Plays The Piano, Emotional Dean, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fallen Castiel, M/M, Music, Past Child Abuse, Piano, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2781080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destielpasta/pseuds/destielpasta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester is more than classic rock, more than the music of his father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ritardando

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alullabytoleaveby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alullabytoleaveby/gifts), [nicKnack22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicKnack22/gifts).



I. _Soli Deo Gloria_

 

His first music is natural, almost genetic.

It’s loud, filling the cavernous space of the Impala and when he was younger he used to cover his ears, wishing it would go away. Only when his father fails to notice his discomfort does he settle back and start to enjoy it. His father only refers to it as ‘real music’; Dean learns about the genre of Classic Rock later.

“Pick a tape for me, Dean,” John would say sometimes, one hand on the steering wheel and the other drumming a-rhythmically in his lap.

Dean would dive into the glove box, braced and ready for this particular request, always picking the same.

“Zep II again?”

Dean would nod, nervous that it was the wrong choice, but John always chuckled and shoved it into the tape deck, a smile at the corner of his mouth. A man’s voice would come through the speakers telling him to [ramble on](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvQ2oKSLIGQ) and he would listen even though he wasn’t sure where he was supposed to be going; what trials he was supposed to be facing as a ten year old with a handgun.

Other times, John doesn’t ask for Dean to pick the music. He chooses the tape himself with the loudest guitars and puts the volume up loud enough to make Dean forget about the cut on his forehead and the emptiness in his stomach.

It’s true, Dean’s first music belongs to his father.

 

* * *

 

 

II. _Contrapunto_

 

The next music he finds belongs to Mrs. Shep, General Music teacher at Mayville Middle School, and he often plays around with it when he should be in Gym class.

The door slams loudly enough to make his fingers fly from the keys of the old Steinway, and he braces for a yell or at least a ‘stern talking to’ at the least. Mrs. Shep stands at an impressive six feet tall, and with her arms crossed and her glasses resting on the bridge of her nose, she presents a scary sight.

“Well?” she says finally, after what seemed like an eternity, “Are you going to just sit there or do you want to learn how to play the damn thing?”

The offer of free piano lessons and a teacher swearing presents a pretty tempting combination, one he would be stupid to pass up. Of course, he couldn’t tell _her_ that.

So he shrugs, nonchalantly, in that way he knows makes him look three years older.

“That might be cool.”

Mrs. Shep only smirks in reply. She starts their first lesson by insisting that he return during his free period, rather than skipping class. It isn’t much a loss; he wasn’t planning on doing any homework in study hall anyway.

Mrs. Shep isn’t an easy teacher. She refuses to abide sloppy thumbs or collapsing joints. He drills five-finger patterns until she’s satisfied enough to let him play the whole scale, harping about thumbs moving with the fingers and wrists that were too deviated and _you’ll get carpel tunnel playing like that_. Despite her reservations, he flies through three method books before she takes them away, setting a thin blue book titled _Anna Magdelena’s Notebook_ in front of him instead.

“Baroque music isn’t for the faint of heart,” she says.

Dean can still feel the sting of rock salt under his fingernails from the night before. A ghost with a short temper. This Bach guy could hardly stand up to that.

“I can handle it.”

She raises her eyebrows, only saying, “Hmm.”

He just barely handles it.

Counterpoint is difficult to wrap his head around, even more difficult for his fingers, and he finds the jump from music written for children to music written for children of a bygone era to be jarring. He wants to make music that sounds like something, that make heads turn, and this sounds like _nothing_. His fingers trip, clumsy and late getting to every beat. The tiny music notes mock him from the creamy white page, his eyes straining to see every single one at the right time.

His playing suffers until Mrs. Shep swipes the book away from him.

“I’m gonna learn it, I swear!” he begs, hating how pathetic he sounds.

She shakes her head, holding up a hand to stop his further protests. “I believe you. But you’re wrong.”

He sinks under the sting of her words, bracing his feet against the carpet to get up and leave.

“You’re wrong because you’ve already learned it. Now play it, and [play it ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VEzZGpSdsE)_[right](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VEzZGpSdsE)._ ”

He blinks stupidly before jerking back to life with a new electricity in his hands. Something, a little voice in his head, tells him that he can do this. His hands relax, falling into position, especially now that he can look at them and not the page. Still they shake, and he hadn’t made an effort to memorize the piece, never attempting to play without the sheet music.

The first note is timid. He hesitates, the next beat coming out of time, but by the second measure he finds a flow, playing through to the end.

He finishes, setting his hands in his lap and staring at the keys. Mrs. Shep had walked back to her desk while he had been playing, and she nods as if just discovering a secret.

“I thought you might be an auditory learner.”

“What does that mean?” he asks, confused.

“Don’t overthink it,” she says quickly, “But it might mean that you’re more apt to enjoy memorizing music than reading it from the page. Your playing sounded much better when you weren’t so concentrated on reading the notes.”

Dean looks down at his hands, not completely understanding her words, but getting it just enough to know that he wants to feel that feeling again. The smooth keys under his fingertips, the way the muscles in his back work to help him create motion in the music, and the feeling of really hearing _that something_ come from him.

He thinks back to the sound of canned guitars and drums in his father’s car, that was nothing like this.

“I gotta learn another one,” he says, turning to a smiling Mrs. Shep.

He went home to a drunk father and a hungry brother that night, and woke up to a hung-over proclamation that they were leaving the very next day. One more day at Mayville Middle School.

He goes to the music room during Mrs. Shep’s lunch period, not wanting to take up her free period anymore. She has her tape player going, playing something unfamiliar with big, thunderous chords.

“What’s going on, Dean?” she asks, smiling from her desk.

“I-uh,” he hesitates, feeling foolish for even thinking she would care to hear his story, “I’m moving away. Tomorrow.”

Moving. _Moving._ Why would he even say that? Moving implies that you’re actually settled someplace, and that doesn’t count people who live in hotels and rest stops.

Her smile shrinks down to something sadder. “I’m sorry to hear that, I enjoyed teaching you.”

He raises his eyebrows, genuinely surprised. “You did?”

She doesn’t laugh. “Yes. You have a good ear for music, Dean. Don’t forget to keep using it."

He nods, not knowing what else to say. She taps her fingers on the worn formica desk top before standing up and going to the tape player.

“What is this?” he asks.

“Schumann. [Ende vom Lied](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgIIwTbnmEY). It means End of the Song.”

“Sounds hard,” he scoffs, remembering what she had said about how his finger joints had the habit of collapsing, and how piano would always be hard for him because of that.

“Not as hard as you would think.” She presses stop, ejecting the tape and putting it back in its case. “Do you have somewhere to play this?”

Dean thinks of the Impala first, but that wasn’t safe ground to be playing anything without guitars or drums. But maybe if he snuck out in the night or while Dad got gas--

“Yeah.” He nods too, for good measure.

She held the worn cassette. “It’s yours then. Something new for you to listen to while you travel.”

He finds a moment to pop it into the Impala tape player while Sam and John run into a gas station about forty miles out from Mayville the next day. He hadn’t even rewound it, and _Ende vom Lied_ starts in middle where it had been stopped by Mrs. Shep. The chords boom in a way he could only revel in, staring at his hands and knowing that they could never make that kind of sound. _Would_ never make that sound.

They come back before he gets to the end.

 

* * *

 

 

III. _Erotico_

 

He doesn’t know what the [damn song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXELCSMLt9M) is called-- he had just turned on the radio when they had stumbled into the back seat-- he only knows that he’s twenty-three and _man_ did it feel good to finally lay between another man’s legs and kiss the hell out of him. He hums along to a song he can’t quite remember for days after that, alone in the cavernous space of his father’s car and wondering whether it was a good idea to stop by Stamford since he was on the west coast.

 

* * *

 

 

IV. _Dolce_

 

Dean hears music when Cas falls to earth for the last time.

It’s nothing special, just some canned [Christmas music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySMrYkKjRpA) pumped out into the frosty air from loudspeakers in whatever parking lot for whatever _god forsaken_ grocery store they were stuck in.

_Sleigh Bells ring, are ya listening?_

“Cas.”

Blood runs down his best friend’s face, a nasty cut right across his forehead. That’s not a problem, that just needs a few shots of jack and stitches to get better. The problem is that Cas is lying limp in his lap, his eyes closed to lifeless slits.

_Gone away, is the bluebird..._

“Come on Cas,” he whispers, moisture pooling under his eyelids before dropping onto the collar of Cas’s shirt. A hand falls onto his shoulder, Sam.

“Dean--”

“Get the fuck away from me Sammy I swear to God--”

“Dean, he’s--”

“I know, Sam. Just get the hell out of my face.”

_He’ll say are you married you’ll say “No man!”_

The choice had been clear, Dean had seen it. The dumbass just didn’t take it. He could have his grace, his family back, his _home_ back… the image is burned into Dean’s eyelids; Cas’s small, sad smile, right before he had reached into his own chest and pulled, hard. The explosion that followed had sent them hurtling back to earth, to a parking lot where someone had forgotten to turn the music off before closing time.

His body is heavy, and Dean adjusts himself so that his legs prop Cas up and he can lean against the Impala, stroking Cas’s hair back from his forehead with light fingers

“You can’t leave me now, man.”

_To face unafraid, the plans that we’ve made…_

The first hitch of Cas’s breath has Dean thinking he’s hearing things, the second is true and undeniable. He heaves himself forward of his own accord, coughing and sputtering and Dean thinks that the fluttering of his eyelids is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Dean,” he chokes out, his first word as a permanent human.

“I’m here.” He clutches onto him, feeling Cas grasp at him wherever he can; the sleeve of his coat, the fabric of his shirt collar.

“This,” he coughs again, “This is a horrible song.”

Dean laughs, and snowflakes begin to fall onto them. He runs a hand through Cas’s hair, dispersing them before leaning down to brush his forehead against his.

_A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight._

 

* * *

 

V. _Con Fuoco_

 

Cas is the one who finds the piano. With his wings clipped he had taken to wandering when he felt the pain too intently.

Dean is reheating leftover chili when he hears it. It sounds like a [crash at first](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_sfwsVbd4k), indecipherable until Dean abandons the stove in search of it. As he gets closer he realizes it’s coming from the basement, and descends with his hand itching for a knife.

It becomes increasingly clear that he doesn’t need one as the sound divides, separating into pieces that make it sound like… well _something else_. Cas sits on a worn bench, his back straight and his hands _flying_ over the keys of a beat-up baby grand. The music sounds like a storm, with no discernible melody. It crashes up and down, up and down, consistent but wild within itself and Dean can’t help but stand frozen, letting it wash over him like a tidal wave.

Cas doesn’t notice him, or if he does, he ignores him. He realizes that his initial shock at the noise came from the fact that the piano was years of tune, its sound less than ideal. Cas’s shoulders flex under the thin cotton of his t-shirt, transforming the repetitive motives into something extraordinary and downright terrifying.

Dean leans against a support beam, running a hand over his face.

The piece ends with a flourish and an energetic chord. The silence that follows is crushing, and Dean wants out as soon as he hears Cas’s breath hitch in his lungs, the beginnings of a sob. He contemplates clapping, turning the moment into something light before slinging his arm around Cas’s shoulders and getting him some chili.

He stays still.

“There were choirs,” Cas says, breaking the silence.

Dean starts, not even aware that Cas had known he was there. He waits for him to continue, fingers fidgeting at his side.

“There were choirs,” he says again, turning around to look at him, eyes shining. “In heaven. Angels, so many angels together and singing and orchestrating the music of the universe.”

Dean clears his throat. “Sounds like something.”

Cas nods. “It was. I wasn’t a part of it usually. As one of the Seraphim I was constantly on guard, always waiting for a threat. But I always listened for it.”

A second ticks by, and Cas turns back to the piano, running a reverent hand over the keys. Dean approached him, the floorboards creaking under his feet. He places a hand on the worn black wood. With Cas’s hands still, Dean notices the details of the piano itself. The white sheet half-covering it is yellow with age, the words _Wurlitzer_ almost entirely faded from the fallboard. This piano is nothing like the shiny upright in Mrs. Shep’s classroom twenty years ago.

He swallows hard at the memory.

“You seem to t’know what you’re doing with this though.” He waves a hand at the piano.

Cas sighs, his eyes far away. “Chopin wrote that after suffering a broken heart. Poland had just been invaded by the Russians, and he was in France-- far away.”

“I doubt old Freddy could have done much,” Dean says quietly, “He was a composer, not a soldier.”

“But I was,” Cas snaps, his mouth a hard line when he finally looks Dean in the eye, “I was.”

The silence hangs heavy after that, thick with an argument that neither of them had the energy for at the moment. They had plenty of those these days, usually ending in broken mugs and purposely missed punches.

Instead Dean swallows hard, pulling the sheet all the way off the piano. Cas coughs at the dust that rises from it, but the piano gleams even in the dim light.

“Play another?”

Cas purses his lips, but the first note of the next piece comes out clean and pure. It’s a slower one this time, and Dean melts against the wall, sitting on the floor and letting every phrase wash over him.

 

* * *

 

 

VI. _Andante_

 

A month passes before Dean even touches the piano. Sam keeps dropping hints that he should, that there are a ton of tutorials on the internet that show amateurs how to play. Sam doesn’t know that he once was able to read the fancy notation that all the rich kids learned in piano lessons that they never wanted-- lessons he would have faced a whole nest of vamps to continue.

He takes the bait tho, setting up his laptop on the stand with a video tutorial for [_Stairway to Heaven_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_f_Wfhr9a0) of all things. He watches it once before playing, grimacing at the corny guy hosting it and his questionable technique. He can hear Mrs. Shep in the back of his mind diagnosing all the problems. Deviated wrists, collapsing finger joints, tension in the thumbs…

He shakes himself out of memory lane and sets a hand to the keys. The host promises that the left hand is easy, so he starts with that. Playing one note at a time is easy, but negotiating an octave takes some concentration. His hand tenses from the stretch, too used to clenching around a knife or a bottle to open easily now.

The melody comes easier. It’s familiar and comfortable, as if it had transferred there from the Impala speakers. He mumbles the words under his breath, still sounding too loud in the quiet basement.

“Haven’t heard that one in a while.”

A jumble of notes accompanies Dean’s flinch, turning around to see Sam sitting on the ground with his back against the wall.

“Who are you, Cas? I could’ve shot you,” he grumbles.

Sam smiles in that shit-eating way that hadn’t changed since he was a toddler. “You didn’t bring a gun down here, asshole.”

Dean turns back to the piano, pausing the tutorial video that was still cranking along despite his ignorance. He hears Sam fidget behind him before speaking up again.

“I knew about you playing the piano. At that one school. God help me if I can remember the name.”

“Mayville,” Dean says, turning around, “And how the hell did you know about that?”

Sam shrugs. “Followed you one day in school. Not exactly advanced espionage.”

“Gonna give me shit for that? It was twenty years ago.”

“No.” Sam says, his smile fading. “I just wish you could have kept going with it, is all.”

Dean looks down, resting a hand on the fallboard and tapping his fingernail lightly against it.

“Me too.”

He learns the rest of it. Sam sinks to the floor and listens, and he doesn’t even mind when Sam hears him sing.

 

* * *

 

 

VII. _Una Corda_

 

Cas takes to sitting side by side with Dean on the piano bench (which is definitely not made for two full grown men and sometimes their legs touch but that was nobody’s business), making up elaborate accompaniments to the melodies Dean plugs out in the upper register. It’s a silent ritual, performed usually after fights or at least strings of angry words and it calms Dean’s heart rate, at least.

And he likes how Cas’s eyes light up at the piano, as if grace still burned through him.

Dean goes to the piano alone tonight, however, and realizes upon approaching that something is different. A book sits perched on the music stand, its cover worn but unfamiliar. Cas never uses music books, miraculously pulling the music from some sort of cosmic memory. He picks it up, squinting at the gold-embossed lettering on the cover.

_The Complete Lyric Pieces of Edvard Grieg_

Dean grimaces. Funny name. Seems like something Sam might have dragged out of the archives, forgetting to put it back. He flips through a few pages, the old binding creaking in the dusty air. Notes upon notes fill every page, foreign looking but jogging old memories of a brightly lit music room and a shiny upright piano. The squiggly thing that looks like an S is the treble clef. You play that part with your right hand. Right? Maybe.

There’s a bookmark wedged somewhere in the middle, keeping the place for a song called _Notturno._ Dean blinks at the notes before depositing the book back on the music stand. He goes upstairs at a brisk trot, ignoring the heat behind his eyes.

If he looks up _[Notturno](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjCoXo8kb1g) _ on youtube the next day while researching a case it’s really nobody’s business, but he turns the volume to the lowest setting anyway as the music crackles to life. He clicks on the first link, a woman’s name listed as the pianist: Alicia de Laroccha. Static crackles from the speakers before the sound, evidence of a recording taken from an old vinyl record.

Dean listens raptly as the pianist takes the flat notes on the page and turns them into something… strange. At first he’s confused; his younger self had heard Schumann’s huge chords and wanted nothing more than to play them, but now, he thinks that something softer is more appropriate.

Sam’s bedroom door opens and closes down the hall, and he pauses the recording before it finishes.

Learning the melodies to classic rock songs on the internet had been one thing, but successfully deciphering classical notation turns out to be a completely different beast. He remembers where _some_ of the notes go, keeping his laptop close to investigate what he doesn’t recallt. His hands struggle to stretch and move in time, both hands taking on both melody and accompaniment and what had that been again? _Texture._ That had been the word.

It’s slow going, and it’s hard to practice when you don’t want anyone around to hear you. Sam’s always lurking around and Cas uses the piano like therapy but somehow he does it just in time for Christmas to roll back around.

“Dean of course I would love to listen to you play--”

“Cas so help me God if you make a big deal about this--”

“Dean, just play.”

Dragging Cas down to the basement hadn’t been hard, the guy’s downright excited, and for some reason that makes everything all the harder. The music book lies closed on the piano lid, and Dean wonders if foregoing the sheet music was the smartest idea.

He takes a deep breath and relaxes his muscles just like the piano forum members had advised online. Even so, the first note is timid, only half sounding in the stale basement air. He stumbles over the following chords but somewhere in the second measure, he finds a momentum.

The sheet music would have been just a distraction, just as it had been years ago, and he relaxes. The music swells and contracts with the beginnings of dynamics, not perfect, but he can _work_ on that. The climax is shaky but that can be fixed. He can get better. He has time.

He becomes conscious of Cas standing behind him only when the last note sounds, hanging like a question. He doesn’t notice the wetness in his eyes until Cas puts a hand on his shoulder, sliding it to the back of his neck to brush against the hair there. The tears fall, anger and heat building up to a disappointing fizzle.

Cas is there, pushing him over so that he can sit, hand still on the back of his neck and isn’t that the kicker that _this_ is what it takes to get the ball rolling. Not Cas almost dying, not living in the bunker, but this stupid song that Dean could only barely play.

Cas rests his head on Dean’s shoulder, his breath warm against the skin of his neck.

“That was beautiful. I didn’t know you could play like that.”

Dean laughs, clearing his throat. “I’m glad you like it, because I didn’t get you anything else for Christmas.”

Cas looks up, taking his face in his hands and turning Dean to look at him. Dean feels like putty under his hands.

“It was perfect.”

They sit like that for some time more, and if a tentative peck against Dean’s cheek turns into a full-fledged kiss on the piano bench, then they only have the music to blame.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Musical Words:
> 
> 1\. Soli Deo Gloria: For the glory of God; before the late Baroque period, all musicians dedicated their music to God  
> 2\. Contrapunto: Counterpoint; the relationship between voices that are interdependent harmonically (polyphony) yet independent in rhythm and contour  
> 3\. Erotico: erotic (emotional) piece  
> 4\. Dolce: sweetly  
> 5\. Con fuoco: with fire  
> 6\. Andante: walking pace  
> 7\. Una Corda: the soft pedal on the piano


End file.
